


Invisible Sun Thy Will Be Done

by crimsonsenya



Category: Oasis (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-26 11:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonsenya/pseuds/crimsonsenya
Summary: Liam and Noel have each other's names on their wrists. Sometimes this makes them ecstatic and sometimes miserable.
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Comments: 20
Kudos: 36





	Invisible Sun Thy Will Be Done

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [Invisible Sun Thy Will Be Done](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22438360) by [Shoot1984](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoot1984/pseuds/Shoot1984)

> This fic, that has been brewing in my brain for two years, was heavily inspired by song analysis of Oasis done over at Madfeourkid/Lettherebelove, especially about Noel's song The Girl With The X-Ray Eyes. The title is of course from Liam's new album.

1978

Liam was six when he came to show his wrist to his big brother. It was late summer closer to Liam’s birthday. The grass on their back yard had started loosing its bright shade of green.

“Look, look! It’s your name!” Liam was almost breathless from running. His t-shirt was splattered with grass stains and dots of chocolate ice-cream, and his knees were dirty from stumbling on the football field. Liam had lost a front teeth, and his silky brown hair needed a cut before school started. An angel and a little devil wrapped up in one child. All day long, Noel had been scratching the inside of his own right wrist at the exact same spot where his name now stood on Liam’s left wrist. The mark looked like the adult version of his left handed Noel Gallagher scribble. How did Liam even understand it? The meaning of the mark was crystal clear though. He and his brother were soulmates. Noel pulled down his wristband. Underneath, there was only one word. The writing was quite funny, too. The letter L looked like a crooked wand, and the word blended in a way that read more like Lam than Liam, but his gut told him the truth. Noel was eleven years old when he was hit by a cold shower, by a ten ton truck. The soul-mark and the bond were irrevocable. The single most important relationship in his life stood right in front of him in the form of his little brother. 

Liam was too young to understand the weight of the two black smudges on the rest of their lives. He was simply excited. Liam jumped at his brother’s neck, squeezing Noel with his skinny arms. Noel automatically hugged him back, unconsciously drawing comfort from their budding connection, even if there were bruises on Noel’s back that hurt at the touch. Liam liked hugging even if he was thirsty and wanted to get some lemonade. Maybe, their Mum had made dinner already. Noel felt all of it, and Liam’s warm sun-scorched cheek against his. They should go in and tell their Mum and their Dad... Dad must had gone straight to the pub after work again since he hadn’t come home yet. Later, if he had a few too many and wasn’t on good mood... Noel did not want to tell their Dad...

“Noely, don’t be sad. You are my best friend,” Liam said in a childish yet sincere way that helped dissipate the threads of fear in Noel’s heart. It was the first explanation that was given to children about soulmate marks, like when you told a child the babies were brought by cranes. Your soulmate was your best friend. Only when people grew up, they learned the mark didn’t guarantee you happiness. It only ensured you got your heart broken twice as bad when things fell apart. Their Mum and Dad shared soulmarks after all.

1982

The first time, they realized their bond wasn’t quite ordinary was when their Dad kicked Noel in the ribs and the bruises also appeared on the same spot on Liam. Two days later, their Mum finally left their father and moved them to Cranwell Drive. 

By the time Noel was sixteen, he had read a PhD level of information on soulmates and soulmarks, all the books that he could find in the Burnage library. The statistics of soulmarks were the following:  
5 % of people never got a soulmark.  
5% of soulmarks were shared by people related by blood.  
10% of soulmarks were irregular, marks appeared and disappeared, multiple marks on one person, symbols instead of letters and so on.  
15% of soulbonds were purely platonic.  
70% of soulbonds between people who met their soulmate were romantic in nature to at least some degree.

Soulmarks usually manifested at the puberty, so that was why Noel had received his first wristband after First Communion, as it was the custom in the Catholic Church. The intensity of the bond generated by the soulmark could vary from mild sensations to full-blown telepathy. The full formation of the bond was a gradual process that could be triggered, even before meeting your soulmate, by strong emotion, physical trauma or sexual contact.

The most common effects of the soulmate bond were a heightened six sense concerning the well-being of one’s bonded, a heightened spatial awareness of the soulmate’s location once the bond was formed, a general feeling of comfort and trust, and a slightly elevated physical stress reaction during separation. 

40% of people never met the person indicated by the soulmark in their lifetime, a number that went down after the advent of the internet. Most religions declared if you did not meet your soulmate during your lifetime, you would be reunited in the afterlife. 

Less than 4% of all soulmate pairs experienced purely verbal telepathy, a deep sharing or a complete transference of physical experiences and emotions. In these cases, extended physical distance between soulmates lead to severe physical and emotional discomfort and separation anxiety that the soulmate bond might compensate with an even more intensive telepathic connection. There was no known cure or remedy for a soulmate bond. The UN had declared it illegal to even experiment on soulmate severance, and the declaration had been ratified by all nations. 

In short, Noel at the ripe age of sixteen thought he and his little brother had drawn the shittiest cosmic lottery ticket ever. And the shitty ticket was a gift that kept on giving. Noel came home for a visit a few weeks before his 21st birthday, when he stumbled upon his sixteen-year-old little brother fresh out of shower, a towel wrapped around his hips. For one heart-stopping second, Noel saw a stranger standing in the hallway, someone who took his breath away. A smile lit the stranger’s face like sunshine, and the next second, the stranger became our kid again. Noel ran off. Even as he ran he could feel the silver cord of their bond send him sensations, Liam’s elation and confusion. They were fucked. 

1988

Liam thought Inspiral Carpets were a shite band. He could feel Noel’s peaked interest in the band’s keyboardist, whose hair looked like it had been cut with a knife and fork. What kind of a rock’n’roll star played the keyboard anyway? Noel liked Clint more than the birds he shagged. In fact, Liam thought Noel wanted to shag Clint too. Before Noel left with the band on tour, he got himself an identical hairdo so Liam was only happy to get rid of his knobhead of a brother. 

When they were apart, Liam sometimes woke up in the night buzzin’ or horny, and he knew his brother was doing E or getting laid somewhere far away. Liam skipped school and roamed Manchester alone, stealing whatever he could get his hands on, and getting in the face of blokes bigger and tougher than he. He had his eyes black and lips busted at least a dozen times. ‘You should see the other guy,’ he told his mates. Fooling around with as many girls as he could didn’t bring him any satisfaction, but let Noel deal with awkward hard-ons, for once. 

Liam formed a band and wrote his first lyrics, thinking about what Noel was feeling when Clint took him, what Liam might want. How would it feel to have someone overwhelm him, slide inside him? What they almost did with Noel one night before he took off was nowhere near what Noel was doing now, somewhere out there where Liam could only feel him. Liam took his wristband off and traced his soulmate’s name in the pale light of the streetlamps streaming though the gauzy curtains of their bedroom. Almost every day, his blunt nails bit crescent moons on his palms. He swallowed screams, lashed out at anyone, everyone, even Paulie and his Mum. The only time he felt at home in his skin was when he was singing.

The separation felt like phantom pain from a missing limb. Ever since he learned to walk he had stuck to the company of his brothers, especially Noel. Noel’s name on his wrist was supposed to mean Liam would never have to be alone in his life. Why had Noel just fucked off one day then? If Noel had Liam’s name on his wrist, how was he happy with a few measly phone calls to Liam? No, Liam would not wait anymore for fucking phone calls or postcards. He would practice his songs with The Rain, and he would practice his charms on people. See, how much he cared about his cunt of a brother? 

Liam would look at people like he would have looked at Noel. Like they were alone in the world, like Liam wanted to wrap their soul and skin around himself, like he would be in them. And people started taking notice of him. Girls and women melted in a heartbeat, they had always done so. Guys started paying instant attention. They started showing their bellies, wanting to bask in the glow of his gaze, be his best mates. Some of them even melted like the women. 

1991

Up where the wall met the ceiling, there was a darker patch in the shape of Antarctica where a hanging corner of the wallpaper had been glued back to the wall. Noel inspected it lying naked on his bed, plagued by self-loathing even as shivers of euphoria kept still running over his goose-pebbled skin. Never before had he felt this shameless about his body after sex. Having been exposed fully from the inside had for once delivered him from the awkward self-awareness that had accompanied him since his childhood. What connected him to the person next to him lay between them like a thick bundle of rope. If you cut one thread, there would still be hundreds more in its place. A sense of fate settled in the pit of his stomach, chasing away any residing anxiety, enhanced by the waning effect of the drugs he had consumed earlier.

“The priest said ‘God does not make mistakes with soulmates’, that it’s a sin to be with anyone that is not yours.” The other person in the room spoke up, or he did not say anything aloud. He merely thought, and the words echoed in Noel’s skull as if they were his own. Yeah, God did not make mistakes with soulmates. At that moment, Noel couldn’t fathom that he could have ever had such an all-encompassing and inescapable connection with anyone else than his soulmate. However, if God wanted Noel to suffer the most, this was the best soulmate God could have chosen for him. 

“The priest will change his mind if he ever hears about us.” Noel sent the thought to Liam. He could feel a flash of hurt through their bond, and Liam rolled over turning his back to Noel. To belie the harshness of his words, Noel scooted over to wrap his arm around Liam, as his hand began an immediate dance of strokes on Liam’s bare belly. His brother’s mind became pliant and still, and Noel was both unwilling and powerless to stop touching him.

“Though, if what we did is not a sin, then we won’t have to confess. And the priest won’t know shit, will he?” Noel thought at Liam, knowing well he should not be using their telepathy nor touching him, for that matter, after sex. Noel had read all about the contribution of post-coital pheromones in enforcing more extensive and effective synaptic connections after the initial establishment of a telepathic bond between soulmates. But why should he bother? After having thoughts flow between them, moving his tongue and lips to form words was too much work. Noel realized this idleness stemmed from their bond that pumped his system full of endorphin, at least ten times stronger than the little pills that Liam had handed out to him earlier, like Eve presenting a beautiful fruit to Adam at the garden of Eden. 

When Noel returned from the tour, Liam had made himself scarce, and Noel had accepted the pills as a peace offering. Not that Noel would have ever admitted it aloud, but he had been disappointed in not seeing his brother, except for a few fleeting glimpses, for the two weeks he had been back in Manchester. Liam had grown up so much while Noel was away. To Noel, his brother looked like sin wrapped in a shaggy haircut and a worn-out jumper, that Liam took off as soon as he got too hot from the E. Underneath, he was wearing a ratty Inspiral Carpets t-shirt Noel had given him before leaving. There was a new one waiting for Liam in Noel’s bag that he hadn’t had a chance to give him. They had Magical Mystery Tour spinning in the record player.

“I am he, as you are he, as you are me...” Liam singing along was like honey being poured down Noel’s eardrums. Liam pulled off his t-shirt, too, and his bare skin shimmered in Noel’s eyes. Noel started chasing the little lights with his fingertips, tracing mad patterns around, dipping into his belly button, teasing the soft hairs of his treasure trail. Noel was panting, or no, Liam was panting as he began to strip off both Noel’s shirt and knit sweater in one brisk swoop. Now, Noel saw the lights, and now, he didn’t. 

They were on their bed. Noel was on his back, and Liam was poised over him, knees bracketing Noel’s hips. The heat and weight of his crotch were pressing down on Noel, and oh... All of a sudden Noel was one hard line of pleasure. Noel’s fingers kept following little sparks down Liam’s sides, disappearing underneath the waistband of his sweatpants. The contact of their mouths felt like more shimmer pouring in with wet, soft texture of lips and tongues. Noel explored more under the waistband, grabbing and pushing, and Liam was gasping and pressing more onto him. 

“I want you to give it to me.” His brother’s word were a bucket of icy water straight onto Noel’s face. His fingers and hips ceased their movement, pulled back. ‘I want to,’ replied Noel’s heart.  
“Christ, you don’t even know what you’re asking,” said Noel’s mouth. Liam pulled aside to the edge of the bed. He started wringing the ties of the leather wristband which hid Noel's name.

“You did it with him all year,” Liam spat at him. Yeah, Noel had lost track on how many times he had had sex with Clint on the road, and a few other blokes too. Clint had been funny, talented, smart, and good-looking, and getting fucked by him hadn’t been...

“It wasn’t a crime,” Noel said, his eyes locked into the defiant, smooth slope of his brother’s back, at the tiny star clusters of moles on skin yet unexplored. Noel should have said ‘I’m sorry I made you feel the living ghost of my pleasure. I’m sorry I made you want me as much as I want you.’ 

“If you won’t do it, I’ll find me a bloke who will.” Liam turned the blue searchlights that were his eyes at Noel, who imagined some hairy, muscle-heavy, leather clad man dragging down Liam’s waistband. Noel could see rough hands grabbing Liam’s hips, bending his brother’s body over a cold surface, possibly a table, before fucking into him without care. He imagined Liam biting down on his lip in pain while pushing his ass back out of sheer stubbornness, just to prove a point to Noel. Or maybe the stranger would go down on his knees first and taste Liam inside out, know him in a way Noel denied himself. The thought drove him mad. His head and heart both throbbed from disgust and rage towards the non-existent stranger.

Liam had hit the crux of Noel’s dilemma. Noel wasn’t sure if he wanted to start what his body and subconscious where compelling him to do, but he sure as hell did not want any other bloke near Liam. There had been an insistent whisper of ‘mine, mine’ slithering in Noel’s back brain ever since he realized their bond was romantic. Day by day, that whisper had grown more demanding and violent. Noel could see a future laid out for them. Noel had gone to see Liam’s band, after all. The songs were shite, but Liam was born to be on stage. If Noel agreed to join the band, he would ride them to the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It would be the two of them against the world. And Liam would be his. 

The intensity of his own emotion scared Noel, and some of it must have transferred into Liam. His brother yielded, crossing the bed back against Noel. All bare, soft, glowing skin laid out for Noel's pleasure. This unexpected surrender disarmed Noel's defenses faster than any argument could have. He was rock hard again and shaken to his core by sheer desire. Liam must have been inside Noel’s mind already, because he was like sweet water filling Noel’s cracks. He knew when to push and when to give in. Liam's wet mouth was pliant when Noel dived in, the dry heat inside him burning away any resistance Noel had left. 

By the next morning, their soulmate connection that had reminded Noel of a rope had been plated over with solid gold. 

1994 

Crystal meth was a terrible drug. Noel wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. The whole band ended up snorting it, mistaking it for cocaine. Being under its influence was like having ten TV channels switched open at the same time. Liam’s mind was buzzing at a fire cracker pace hour after hour, day after day during their first tour in America. Noel’s skin felt like it was on fire with a million ants of Liam’s thoughts dancing all over his body. The only drug that had ever dulled their soulmate connection was pot. The connection didn’t really diminish then either, their minds simply calmed down enough for them to deal with the connection better. On meth, everything Noel looked at was superimposed by what Liam was seeing, Noel assumed it was the same for Liam. They both talked too much on meth, but not much to each other. 

By employing all the mind techniques for reigning in aberrant bonds he had read about in psychology books, Noel managed to shut down a few of the channels. As a backlash to Noel’s machinations, Liam got even more erratic and irascible. It always happened whenever Noel tried to smother down their bond or to ‘cut him off’ as Liam called it. 

They lasted until LA and Whisky A Go Go. Noel’s mind was bombarded by an onslaught of Liam’s anger and paranoia, and Noel couldn’t be arsed to comfort his brother. If their bond had been a visible limb, Noel would have put an ax to it. They hadn’t slept for 36 hours. Noel felt like he was bursting out of his seams. The shadows in his hotel room had started moving and taking shape. For once, he would have wanted Liam to ask what was wrong with his brother, to take care of him. The medical text books were very clear about the treatment of overloaded bonds: sensory deprivation in a dark, quiet, even temperature room with skin contact to the person you were bonded with. None of that happened. Liam hit him with the tambourine on stage, and something snapped in Noel’s head. He took a flight back to San Francisco, crashing down from meth as he was flying through white clouds, to reunite with Melinda, whom he met during their gig there. 

It was a nauseating freedom. All Noel’s strength went into breathing in and out. She fed him and took him to a park, like a stray dog she had saved. But she listened to him talk. He had never been very good at it, opening himself up, talking it out. She was the first person beside his Mum to whom he told about his soulmate and the intensity of their bond. His connection to Liam was like being chained to a comet, and Noel loved and hated him in equal measure for it. As far as the nature of their bond went, Noel would have never been that out of his mind to reveal it.

In his mouth, it tasted like strawberries while Noel was away. Liam’s head was splitting when he read Noel’s note. In a bout of petulance, he rolled the paper up to snort one last line of the shittiest quality cocaine he had ever had. The headache got worse. Heavy metal hammers started banging in his skull. The constant sense of Noel he had was slowly fading as if a passenger traveling farther on a train. Regardless, Liam still went on for one more day and night of partying. In the morning, the band and their manager were freaking out because nobody could find Noel. Liam was vomiting and shaking, arms around the white toilet bowl of his crappy motel bathroom. The sound of his own heartbeat drowned out all other noises, and he wanted to reach Noel, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel...

Their manager found him lying buck naked except for his wristband at the doorway of his bathroom, and Liam was taken to a hospital. They shot him up with drugs of a different kind, with something that toned down the overstimulation while meth and cocaine left his system. He got a stern lecture from a doctor about the inherent dangers of maltreatment of Class A soulmate bonds. To Liam, it boiled down to ‘don’t take drugs or both you and your soulmate will go to the loony bin or worse, because the human brain can only take so much telepathy before it fries out’. When he got out, his head felt like someone had matched twelve rounds of heavy weight boxing inside. Liam was wrung out dry, but the cable that always connected him to Noel was warming up again, and Liam knew Noel was on his way back to him, even before he heard about Tim Abbot locating his brother. 

They met up in Minneapolis. Liam fucked off from the rest of the band as soon as he felt Noel enter the hotel building. Noel caught up with him on the hotel roof. Liam kept looking at the view, tall but ugly office buildings lining up a busy street, instead of his brother. Noel came to a halt behind Liam and touched the back of his uncovered neck. A sensation of warm molasses rolled over his skin from the small spot of contact. Liam’s heart first skipped a beat and then started beating in sync with Noel’s heart. Noel stepped in front of him. The sky blue was replaced by the blue of Noel’s eyes. And slowly, the world began spinning right again.

1996

“Take that off,” Noel ordered him. The engagement ring sat heavy on his finger, golden, ruby and bold. Liam pulled it off without a second thought. He left his wristband at the hotel room, too. “You’re mad, kid,” Noel said when he noticed what Liam was doing.

“Come on, live a little. Who’s goin’ to notice?” Liam beckoned him, and with slow, deliberate moves, Noel started to untie the leather cords of his own bracelet, making a show of it. ‘Not Patsy, anyway,’ Liam might have added as well. She had not seen the name on Liam’s wrist, assumed it was hers. On her own wrist stood the words Liam Ga, the latter word might have meant Garfield or Galsworthy or Garrison, but it sure as hell wasn’t Gallagher. The entire handwriting was wrong. The L in Liam was loopy and the text leaned strongly to the right. Patsy and Liam weren’t soulmates, but how likely was it for Patsy to find another Liam Ga when she hadn’t done so in 26 years? Liam couldn’t marry his brother, and he didn’t want to be alone.

The patch of skin where Liam’s name shone on Noel’s wrist was even paler than the rest of his arm. Liam had to capture Noel’s palm, bring the arm to his face, and kiss the word that was the cosmic proof of their indelible connection. Noel let him. The content hum of their bond told him that Noel, too, had missed him, that he craved Liam’s closeness as much as Liam craved his.

Noel lead him outside the castle by his wrist, and Liam linked their palms, his left with Noel’s right. Their marks brushed lightly, spreading tendrils of warmth all over his body, their bodies. He could feel exactly what Noel was planning to do. They would look for drugs on the shoreline, a psychedelic treasure hunt if you would. 

“I heard the kids hid their pills in the sand on the beach to not get arrested with them,” Noel said aloud. “Let’s see if we can get high for free tonight.” The moon was full, a heavy silver disco ball, hanging in the sky just at a hand’s reach. They strode downhill. The lake was still as the moonglow hit the surface. The sand was poked with tiny mounds, miniature sand castles hiding myriad trips for the mind. It seemed Liam had quite the talent for hunting E. 

“You’re the best drug dog in UK!” Noel laughed as they gathered their pockets full. Liam wiped one little pill clean. It shone like a pearl in the moonlight. He slipped it on his tongue, but thought better of it. He surprised Noel with a kiss. Noel winced when Liam’s teeth hit Noel’s lip, but only for a second. Their tongues battled heatedly, and Noel swallowed. ‘Good boy,’ Liam thought and took another pill of his own.

They waded out a little further along the shoreline, lost sight of the lights of the castle. The moon glowed even brighter. The silent, black trees at the water’s edge standing guard at their love affair. Noel pulled Liam close, slipping his hands under Liam’s clothes, when they stopped to stare at the shiny mirror of the water. Liam felt how Noel felt his skin, soft silk on Noel’s palm. To Noel, at that very moment, their connection reminded of a cool aqua crystal. Tingles ran over Liam’s skin from his belly, that Noel kept stroking, up to the top of his head. It felt like a thousand butterflies flapping their fragile wings against him. To Liam, their link was not just cool aqua, it exploded into a rainbow of colours.

Most of the time, Noel’s mind to him was a deep forest, their connection a vine growing tight around Liam’s heart, digging painful roots. Their bond might hurt, but he would never feel alone, and nothing else could hurt him under its protection. Liam’s mind to Noel was a labyrinthine house of mirrors where Noel walked naked. The connection he had to Liam was a leather collar around his neck, Even if it stopped him from breathing sometimes, it was a permanent, erotic sign of safety and belonging.

Liam was on his knees on the sand. They lost all sense of space and time. They had felt the effect of this act on each other’s minds for so many times, both having it done to them and them doing the deed to others, that they had almost forgotten how it felt to do it to each other. Liam thought of communion. Being on his knees and receiving, the weight of the gift hard and heavy and soft on his tongue. Noel’s mind was shooting up in the night sky, screaming among the exploding stars. Soul shaken, body wrecked with pleasure, voice hoarse as he called out for Liam. Their gazes locked. It was a sea. They were the sea, and it went on, just the pure expanse of the two of them. They floated and submerged and entwined, and Liam got to see and feel Noel like no else would. 

2000 

Sara MacDonald was the most brilliant and beautiful woman Noel had ever met. Being with her was effortless and uncomplicated, even if Noel had been in a bad place when they first met. In her wrist, there was a name etched in a language that was spoken in Papua New Guinea, and she didn’t have a great urge to travel there. ‘If it’s meant to be,’ she said to him. ‘Meanwhile, I’m going to live the life I want to live.’ 

Noel showed her the name on his wrist in a drunken moment of weakness, as he was already falling in love with her. It was his greatest secret, and he wanted their relationship to be different than his first marriage. She didn’t comment a word, but he could see her smart brains drawing conclusions, and it made Noel fall in love just a tad more. In the years to come, she never complained about the nighttime phone calls, or Liam’s impromptu visits, or Noel’s random disappearances. Nor did she point out their odd behavior. Noel remembered how much Megan had freaked out back at the Supernova Heights every time Noel had sent someone down to open the door for Liam before the doorbell even chimed. For years, Sara and Liam shared him. 

2002 

It had been sweet between them ever since Liam had gotten his gear together and recorded two of his own songs for their upcoming album. A calm tenderness had reigned in their bond, in Liam’s mind, and Noel had reveled in the feeling. Their current relationships with their girlfriends, the new baby, the new album. Things had rolled smoothly for them for a while. They had traveled overseas for two small gigs in Las Vegas and California. Noel had slept in the same bed with Liam on their trip. The soundest kip he had had in years. In the nights, the two of them were lulled in a calm moonlit world of their own, sleeping mostly naked with their bodies touching. They had been completely platonic for some time, but the itch would come again, and Noel knew they would scratch it. Their current state of being had opened a surprising well of creativity for Noel. Another month and he would be halfway to his next album, altogether. 

On the telly, there was a disaster in waiting on the morning after their Las Vegas gig. Noel, still on his underwear, was picking up cords for new songs on the couch, while Liam was stuck in front of the TV of their suite. Wet from a shower, Liam was dripping all over a shaggy white carpet. A towel was wrapped around his hips, and he had probably soaked up all the towels in the bathroom one way or another. Paul McCartney was singing Here Today as part of a feature where McCartney had finally admitted, and Yoko had verified, that John Lennon had had two soulmate names on his wrist, both Paul’s and Yoko’s. Here Today was a heartbreaking elegy to a lost love. McCartney’s voice broke in the middle of the song, and Liam’s eyes were in tears.

“Will that be us?” Liam asked him. Noel waved goodbye at their month and a half of brotherly bliss. “Will you be singing about me on telly when I’m dead? Tellin’ everyone ‘ow much you loved me when I’m dead and buried, because you didn’t have the bollocks to tell anyone when I was alive?” Liam came to stand in front of him, legs on fight stance and arms akimbo. Noel set his fingers flat on the strings of his acoustic guitar, cutting off the melody. 

“You need not bother. I don’t plan telling anyone I love you whether you’re dead or alive,” Noel said, glancing away from his glowering brother.

“Then it won’t matter a lick if I take off this wristband and walk out of here.” For most of the time, Liam was co-operative in keeping their secret. Every now and then, something triggered in him a bout of uncertainty that made him toy with the idea of coming out with their soulmate bond. Noel should send Macca a rude letter of complaint. Let him deal with a distraught Liam Gallagher, for once. Noel perched his guitar on the couch.

“Go on. Walk out with a bare wrist if you want to talk about it to every journalist you’ll ever meet from now on. How long do you think it will take before you slip out or they figure that our bond is telepathic? Do you believe they won’t pull out psychologists and doctors who’ll state that this level of telepathy does not exist in platonic soulmates less they’re identical twins? Do you want them to ask Nicole, or Mum, or Paul, what they think about those medical facts?” Noel was looking back at Liam, whose arms were now behind his back like he was about to sing on stage, his beautiful eyes blazing. ‘Our kid, if only we could take the world by storm about this,’ Noel thought, and Liam winced. Their bond felt like a metal anchor dragging them down. Liam was giving up on the fight, but Noel kept on. “Are you ready to convince everyone our bond is nothing but platonic? Do you want them to find out I took your virginity by accident when you were ten by having sex with my girlfriend? How about every time either one of us has sex with someone else we’re practically having a threesome? Do you want to explain that to Nicole? Because I sure as hell don’t want to explain it to Sara.”

Liam had turned his eyes towards the floor, and Noel grabbed him by his hair, forcing Liam to look at him. Noel’s left thumb traced the shape of Liam’s lips, his knuckles brushing against his jaw. Liam’s eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones, and his elaborate haircut was a soggy mess. As Noel gazed at his brother, an inevitable lick of lust started igniting in his core, as love, painful and tender seeped deeper into Noel’s heart. He tugged on Liam’s hair harshly, and the metal of their bond started melting into liquid. 

“Does this feel like it’s going away anytime soon, Baby Blue?” Noel asked, answering to all of Liam’s insecurities. “This is going to last until one of us dies.” A day that was too terrifying to contemplate, as the one left behind would most likely fall into a coma. “There is no ring I could give you, or vow, or public statement that could make our bond more permanent.” 

Liam looked at him rapt as if Noel could somehow snatch his words back. The liquid of their bond was heating up. Noel wanted to kiss Liam, and he did so by guiding Liam’s head down. His fingers did not leave Liam’s hair until Liam kneeled down on the bed, and Noel used his belt to tie up Liam’s hands. Noel would be giving him what he wanted and needed. His last words to Liam were sort of a lie. When Noel was inside him, it was the one thing that could make their bond even stronger, charging up their synapses until they oscillated and pulsed in the same wavelength. The secret was that, despite everything, this was what Noel would always want and need, too. 

28.8. 2009

Two busted up guitars backstage in Paris. That’s how it ended. And wasn’t it a fucking metaphor?

2010-2013

Liam woke up in the night feeling like he couldn’t breathe. He left his sleeping wife and walked downstairs into the living room. He laid down on the shaggy carpet and listened to old Oasis B-sides with headphones on to hear his brother’s voice. Both his head and his heart hurt. He knew he wasn’t the only one awake. Noel was puttering around his spacious monochrome kitchen brewing his fifth cup of tea of the night. He was wearing shorts, his bare feet chilly, but he didn’t really feel the cold because Liam’s toes were digging into the warm wool of the carpet. 

Liam could pull a fast one, and it would make Noel come onto the black and white floor tiles. The Potato had to be on his wavelength, because Liam was diamond hard before his hand touched his own cock. He pulled hard and fast with a twist in the end, just like he knew his brother liked it. His and Noel’s combined orgasm shot into Liam’s brain, a rush better than cocaine. His brother ended on all fours on his expensive Italian floor, panting and wrecked. Waves of shivering pleasure kept crashing over his brother’s body, as Liam kept caressing his own bare skin.

“Oh, you bastard.” He could hear in his head before Noel brutally twisted his nipple, and Liam knew it would leave a bruise on them both. They slept uninterrupted for the rest of the night. Next day, Liam posted a tweet that he knew would annoy his brother. 

The reasons for the breakup of their band, of the two of them, had pestered for a long time. Everything had boiled down to two facts: Liam was a mean drunk, whose drunken vitriol had started to remind Noel of their father. Noel, in turn, had never liked to confront his problems head on, he rather avoided them. The more he disappeared, emotionally and physically, from Liam’s life, the more Liam drank. Noel wanted to feel whole and not torn apart in two, so one August afternoon Noel ran away for one last time. 

They did not see each other for a year, then another, then a third. Noel was happy with his life. Very happy. Maybe, he had Liam on Google Alert. Maybe, he asked a cab driver to drive past the Pretty Green Store where a gigantic-sized Liam smoldered straight down at him. Noel was a happy man. The world was his oyster. Any day now, he would write a song that wasn't about his wife or his brother. 

2014-2015 

When Liam hit the bottom of the pool, he opened his eyes to the sting of the chlorinated water and screamed into the watery blue. He had fucked up. He had fucked up his marriage -again-, he had fucked up his career. He had fucked up his whole goddamn life. When he ran out of air, he bopped up to the surface to find Paulie staring at him from the tiled edge of the pool. Liam felt lightheaded like after a first hit from a spliff, except he wasn’t mellow at all, but one giant aching muscle from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair. He knew he was worrying Paulie to death with his silence. Liam needed to start unfurling the sorry tale of his recent fuckups to his brother, but what came out of his mouth was:

“He’s my soulmate.” There was only ever one greedy alligator lurking in the swamp waters of Liam’s life. Noel’s absence was an open wound on his side that did not scar over. The words hung between them for a second. 

“You thought I didn’t know?” Paulie asked, and Liam felt he should apologize to him, but he couldn’t open his mouth. He had to turn his gaze away. Paulie didn’t deserve to be related to two such cunts as Liam and Noel. What Paulie would have deserved was a happily ever after with his own soulmate far away from his wee brothers, maybe on some other, more beautiful planet. 

“Stop playing yellow submarine, Liam. I need to get a bite,” Paulie said, slapping Liam in the head. Liam couldn’t remember when he last ate. He pulled himself up from the pool and grabbed a folded beach towel Paulie had set out for him. 

“You didn’t need to be fooking Sherlock Holmes to find out, did ya?” Liam asked. Paulie looked back at him, the line of his eyebrow tilting up. Liam didn’t need a soulmate bond to read this brother’s mind. 

Noel had health issues, but he dreaded the visit to a doctor. The inevitable health questionnaire began with the question ‘How old were you when your soul mark appeared, if you have any?’, followed by ‘Have you encountered your soulmate?’, ‘At what age did you encounter your soulmate?’, ‘How would you grade the intensity of your soulmate bond?’. When they got to the part about how often you met your soulmate, the typing on the keyboard stopped, and Noel could feel a pair of eyes bore into him. 

“Mr Gallagher, as a physician my duty is to strongly recommend that you reunite with your soulmate as soon as possible. I don’t know yet why you have come to the clinic, but it is likely I cannot treat you properly if you are in a chronic state of bond deprivation. You need to develop more salutary habits.” As if it was as easy as to quit smoking. 

They met up after a Man City game. Noel knew when Liam walked in the stadium, as the hairs on Noel’s neck raised up. He sent Liam a thought of the time and the place after the City won. ‘No hello? Cunt.’ Liam threw back at him, and Noel knew he would appear at the coffee shop. They hid in the most reclusive corner of the half empty cafe they could. To anyone paying attention, it would have looked like the two of them were locked in a staring contest. With fifteen minutes into their date, Noel realized they had slipped into telepathy right away. After half an hour, Noel’s physiology was having a spa day. He could almost sense both his blood pressure and cholesterol levels dropping, even as he was listening to Liam’s divorce woes. 

It was close to Christmas. There was a glass bowl decorated with a bundle of tiny led lights between Liam’s triple expresso and Noel’s cup of tea. On the ceiling, there were more lights, golden led icicles, reaching down like arms giving a blessing to their sin. Not that Noel had believed in any kind of divine interference in their lives for a long time. He knew it was different for his brother, who still believed they had been fated to be soulmates, and that their whole lives and careers had followed some cosmically conceived plan. 

Liam looked like he had been put through a wringer. There were echoes of a fading suntan on his skin from the trip to Spain he had made with Paulie, who had helped him through the worst. Paulie and Liam had become much closer in recent years. For a fleeting second, Noel was jealous, but he didn’t know of which brother. Liam’s hair was shaved close to his head, and the look made him seem naked and more vulnerable. In a fit of tenderness, Noel reached out. Liam’s left hand was lying flat on the table, and Noel laid his own hand on top, startling his brother. Liam’s tale of two lawyers halted to a stop. A shock of electricity burst between them from the palm-shaped patch of skin on skin.

They could get up and walk to the nearest hotel. They could have remorseful, sad, painful sex, and both Noel’s mind and body would have been blitzed out by Liam’s mere presence. There was a three course meal set out for him, and Noel wanted to feast. Liam’s mind was following him out on the same path. Their bond was already turning liquid, pulsing triumphant between them. It would have been easy to let go, a downward slide on a roller coaster, a feather light thump of a head hitting a downy pillow. But Liam’s heart felt scorched out, too sore still. He clamped up, and Noel felt bereft. 

“I promised to see Mum after the match,” Liam said aloud, rising from his seat. Noel followed. 

It started to rain, as they took a taxi to Burnage. The narrow streets of their childhood were turning into a river delta, rivulets of water cascading under their feet. By the time they got inside, Noel was soaked and cold, and that was the part were it got embarrassing for him. Liam unzipped his wet parka at the foyer, and Noel rushed into him, Noel’s hands finding Liam’s skin under his shirt, his face finding a familiar hollow of the neck. For a few minutes, before their mother noticed their arrival, they forgot who they were. 

2019

The dream thing might have been Liam’s doing, or maybe, it was the result of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Nothing ever rolled smoothly for them. Maybe, the problem had once again been of Liam’s own making. They had been again talking at each other through ugly words on press, on songs, on Twitter. Liam was doing much better though. Music had returned to him, and he had found a woman, who made him want to love again. He had released two solo albums and a documentary that had been received with open arms by his fans. He had even connected with his oldest daughter. Maybe, it was just fate.

One morning, he ran though his usual park and stopped to admire the sunrise from the hill. Their usually golden bond was grey with dust. Half out of spite, and half out off wordless yearning, Liam tugged at their bond. Then, he tugged again but harder. He thought about his heart and the other heart at the end of the tether, and he pulled again, this time even harder. He felt something give. Their bond became bendy as a bungee cord. It undulated and gave away, but then, it bounced back with a strength that knocked Liam down on his arse.

Next night, he was back in Burnage, in their tiny prison cell of a room. The window was open, and the old silver stereo was playing ‘Made of Stone’ down at their yard. Liam leaned over the windowsill and ran down the stairs.

“What do you want?” Noel asked as soon as he noticed Liam looming over him. He was lying in the sun, arms folded behind his back, wearing a threadbare Man City shirt and Adidas sweats. It was him for real, the adult him like he looked now, immersed in the backdrop of their youth. Words failed Liam. He wanted to punch his brother. He wanted to tackle him into the ground. He wanted to scream. He wanted to roll over and break down. But he had finally gotten hold of their link. All his love, all his feeling. He gathered it from his cells, pulled the ephemeral rivulets into one big stream of emotion and despair that he forced onto the core of his brother in the form of one question: Why? Why did Noel not love him? Why wasn’t Liam enough for Noel? Why was Liam loved by millions of people except by the one person whose love he craved most? 

The barrier that Noel had always held up against him collapsed against the surprise attack, and Liam was sucked into a waterfall that led to the heart of his brother. A history opened up like a dark bloom, petal by petal. He saw a young Noel, his fears, his insecurities, his ambitions, the music Noel knew was growing in his soul. He saw a young Liam through Noel’s eyes, a jealous resentment being planted as a seed when Liam was excluded from their father’s violent attention. This young Liam grew into someone that the stars seemed to favor, unlike his brother. Somewhere along, the Universe itself shackled the two into each other, and Noel would never shine alone. The very songs Noel bled and sweated onto the paper did not come alive until Liam grabbed them and made them theirs. The only power Noel had ever had was over Liam, and he had held onto it with the ruthlessness of a conquering emperor. Still, Liam had rushed to betray what the two of them were together. He had been the one to marry first. And if Noel hadn’t pulled away, it would have been his heart that got broken. Because no matter how much Noel didn’t want it, he needed Liam. He needed Liam to feel the entire depth of his emotions, and that need, that addiction, that love had always chained them together even tighter than any telepathic soulmate bond. 

Their souls were gliding out on a sea, indigo blue and emerald. The waves rose and fell, crashed over them. As soon as they hung onto each other the waters spiraled around them, pulling them down deeper and deeper into the dark ocean. There was a small flame in their joined heart, and they both clutched onto it. The flame burned so hot it felt cold. The fire spread out, reducing pain and resentment into ashes, leaving only yearning and truth in its wake. 

They surfaced together on the green lawn of the dream version of their childhood home, naked skin on skin, entangled limbs and souls. Liam’s face was pressed against Noel’s neck, both of them panting, their breath steaming the air between them. Noel’s fingers were grasping the short strands at the back of Liam’s skull. Cradled into each other, both emptied out and filled at the brim at once. Liam’s thigh moved between Noel’s thighs, and the friction set Noel ablaze. More than anything, he wanted to rut until he came. He wanted the kind of a life affirming release that could only be achieved after a long drought. His soulmate was obliging him. Noel’s legs were bent up and apart, and Liam’s cock was sliding inside and out of him. Drops of sweat started peppering their skin as they rolled over, and Noel rode hard, fireworks of pleasure bursting up deep inside of him. Their eyes were wide open, drinking each other in. Every new line, every new mole, the old familiar blue of their eyes. Their gazes were locked until the moment they both shattered into an orgasm. 

“I’m dying for a fag,” Noel thought afterwards. Sex that easy could only happen in dreams, and a bloke couldn’t be blamed for dreaming, could he? 

“Why don’t you’ve one?” Liam asked, not lifting his head from where it was lying on Noel’s chest. This was the world of their own. Noel could have his cigarette if he just imagined it. He created one and lit it with a lighter that popped out of thin air. They both shivered with pleasure as Noel breathed in his first hit of nicotine. The memory of thousands of smokes vivid in both their minds. Noel put the stub of the cigarette on Liam’s greedy lips, and they took turns smoking. All the while, Noel’s free hand kept stroking Liam’s back. They would have to wake up at some point, but not just yet. 

2020- 

There was an official intervention orchestrated by Paul, their Mum and their wives, when both Noel and Liam finally agreed to it. They negotiated. The first item was that they would meet three times a week, unless they were on tour, and one of those times was a two hour session with a therapist, a condition set by Noel’s wife. No extra-curricular mid-night phone calls, and no barrage on Twitter. Liam’s first reaction was to get the fuck out right away, but Noel had also figured their bond out. He tugged and a sensation warm honey poured from Liam’s heart prickling over his skin. It stripped away his shields, exposing his hunger. Liam had a condition of his own though. 

“Whenever we meet, I get to touch you as much as I want,” Liam said.

“Alright. Twice a week, I’m all yours.” Noel didn’t even blink before agreeing, probably surprised that the first item was dealt with such swiftness. There was another item Liam had harder time swallowing. He would have to stop drinking, not a single beer with mates, not a drop, period. Liam agreed in the end. Their connection working its magic through his veins more effectively than anything he used to snort as a young man. 

The promise got more difficult to keep later. Alcohol had been his mate and hobby for so long, every time he passed by a pub he felt compelled to walk in. More times than he could count, he ended up at a bar counter staring at an empty tumbler and a bottle of Glenfiddich only to see Noel’s ‘I told you so smile’ reflected back at him from the shiny surface of his glass. He paid and left, out of sheer spite to prove Noel wrong and stay sober. After those times, Liam usually found himself in the nearest coffee shop calling one of his kids. Liam had a second condition for Noel, too. If he wasn’t allowed to drink, then Noel couldn’t drink either, not when they were together or before. No partying overnight and hangover on the day Noel met him. Liam would not have Noel’s sloppy seconds. Their agreement would have to go both ways. 

In time, the universe gave them a break. At their therapy sessions, they argued so often the appointments might have been called fight sessions, even if they bonded over their mutual dislike of their therapist’s orange-rimmed glasses. On their days together, Liam clung to Noel like a limpet, which Noel suffered with dignity. They watched Coronation Street, snuggled on a couch. They hung out with their kids, they visited their Mum and went to Man City’s home games, their thighs pressed all the way together. They were photographed eventually in each other's company, and the inevitable questions about an Oasis reunion followed. Noel got asked about it in every interview, which led to more heated discussions over their therapist’s head. Noel felt the questions were a dismissal of the songwriter he had become after Oasis, and Liam, in turn, considered Noel’s reticence over Oasis as a rejection of himself. 

Music had sneaked back up into their relationship though. Aside from the constant music-like hum of their connection, Noel was writing and compiling songs for a new album, and he might have stolen a line or two that came out of his brother’s mouth. Creativity and energy were at his fingertips, yet again flowing with ease. Liam tinkered with his guitar all day too, working on song bits and pieces that would end up in his third solo album. Noel, in his turn, might have slipped him something that would sound great in Liam’s reinvigorated voice. When Liam started leaving out his wristband during their time together, Noel also took off his own. He realized it made Liam a whole lot more agreeable, and Noel did not feel any particular reason to hide either. 

They were on a new path, and they would get there. Not back in the past, but somewhere new. Definitely, not maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write a hopeful ending for these two yahoos, even if I don't believe anymore that Noel will ever forgive Liam. It completely breaks my heart.


End file.
